COPEHAGEN, DENMARK—It had been thought that grapes were not grown in Denmark before the medieval period, but The Local, Denmark, reports that strontium isotope analysis of two grape seeds recovered at the site of the Viking settlement at Tissø suggests they may have been grown on the main Danish island of Zealand. One of the pips has been dated to the Iron Age, the other to the late Viking period. “We do not know how [the grapes] were used—it may have been just to have a pretty bunch of grapes decorating a table, for example—but it is reasonable to believe that they made wine,” said archaeological botanist Peter Steen Henriksen of Denmark’s National Museum. The Vikings probably first encountered grapes and wine in their travels. For more, go to “Hoards of the Vikings.”
